Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a commodity identification device to recognize a commodity for sales registration and a commodity recognition navigation method.
Background Art
A conventional electronic cash register (commodity registration device) is configured to read a data code, such as a barcode, attached to a commodity by a barcode reader to recognize the commodity. Such a barcode attached to a commodity contains information on a manufacturer code, information on an item code and information on check digits. The commodity registration device confirms correct reading of the barcode in accordance with the information on check digits, and then recognizes the commodity based on the information on the item code. A barcode is printed beforehand on wrapping of a commodity, for example, which can reduce the burden on an operator of the cash register.
However, it is very troublesome to attach a barcode to a commodity that is not wrapped, e.g., fruits and vegetables, which consumes time and cost. In a conventional operation, an operator pushes a button indicating a commodity, such as fruits and vegetables, touches a screen, or selects the code of the commodity from a barcode list separately prepared and reads it with a scanner.
Recently a commodity registration device configured to perform object recognition of fruits and vegetables, for example, and sales registration of the recognized commodity is being introduced widely. This type of commodity registration device is configured to extract an appearance feature amount from image information of a taken image of an object, such as fruits and vegetables, and compares it with a feature amount database about the appearance of commodities to recognize the object as one commodity. Such a commodity registration device can recognize a commodity that is not wrapped as well without the necessity of attaching a barcode thereto, and so the burden on the store can be reduced.
Commodities have a difference in appearance individually. If a commodity as a target is greatly different in appearance from a commodity as a reference, it is difficult to uniquely identify this target commodity based on a similarity degree obtained from the object recognition being performed. In such a case, a conventional commodity registration device having an object recognition function displays a confirmation screen showing a temporary-identified commodity as a candidate of this target commodity, or displays a screen showing a plurality of commodities as candidates of the target commodity in a selectable manner. The operator is then required to perform an operation to touch the screen at a part of the corresponding commodity among the selectable options, for example.
For instance, according to the Patent Document 1 (JP 2013-182323 A), illustration images G1, G2 and G3 of registered commodities as commodity candidates and their commodity names are displayed at a commodity candidate presentation region 83 in the descending order of the similarity degree. The region is configured so that these illustration images G1, G2 and G3 can be selected in accordance with a selection operation to a touch panel 105. At a lower part of the commodity candidate presentation region 83, a selection button 84 to select a commodity from a commodity list is provided, and a commodity selected from the commodity list is processed as a temporary-identified commodity as stated above.
When a customer purchases commodities at a supermarket, they put the commodities in a shopping basket or the like and pass the shopping basket to an operator (store staff) at a cash register to ask the operator for checkout of the commodities. At this time, the operator repeats the operation to make a commodity registration device read the commodities one by one in the shopping basket (hereinafter called a “first shopping basket”) that the customer brought for temporary-registration of commodity information on the commodities as sales information, and to put the commodities in another shopping basket (hereinafter called a “second basket”), whereby the commodities in the first shopping basket are sales-registered.
At this time, the commodity registration device fails to recognize a commodity promptly in some cases. For instance, if an image of a barcode part of a commodity with a barcode cannot be taken successfully, the commodity registration device fails to recognize the commodity promptly. In this case, the operator brings the commodity as close as possible to the camera of the commodity registration device, so as to allow the commodity registration device to recognize the commodity.
Meanwhile, when an image of a commodity as a target of object recognition cannot be taken at an appropriate angle, the commodity registration device cannot recognize the commodity promptly. In this case, the operator may erroneously bring the commodity as close as possible to the camera of the commodity registration device in a similar manner to the reading operation of a barcode.
The failure of a commodity identification device to perform object recognition of a commodity, however, often is caused by inappropriate orientation of the commodity presented toward a camera. For instance, although a commodity assumes a front direction as the orientation having a lot of feature amount enabling the identification of the commodity, the operator directs the top of the commodity toward the camera. Conversely although the orientation of a commodity having a lot of feature amount is a top direction, the operator directs the front of the commodity toward the camera, and these are main factors of the failure. In such a case, the commodity registration device presents a plurality of candidates among registered commodities.
When there is a plurality of candidates among the registered commodities, the invention described in Patent Document 1 sets one candidate among the registered commodities that is selected through a touch panel operation as a temporary-identified commodity. Such selection of the candidate commodity, however, interrupts the flow of sales registration by the operator. This is a factor to need time and labor by the operator, and further cause waiting time for a customer.